


A Bramble Thicket

by Paper0wl



Series: Rod and Shield [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Angels and Demons, Apocalypse Preparation, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, God isn't a Total Deadbeat, Grand Destinies, life sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 11:40:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2227674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper0wl/pseuds/Paper0wl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, Lucifer's daughter dreams of Heaven. </p><p>Unfortunately for her, Heaven generally entails angels trying to kill her for being born. </p><p>Ha. If only things were that simple. Reality is always more complicated than dreams. Especially when angels and demons play with destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bramble Thicket

The shadows cast by the leaves over her head shifted with the motion of the hammock. Through the gaps in the branches, Kyria could see the clouds chasing each other across the sky. She tried not to read anything into that. It was too peaceful here for her to think about Lilith and the aftermath of the alien incursion into New York City. 

That city really got the short end of the stick, didn’t it? 

She tried not to read anything into that either. 

But it was just so much _work_ keeping Kyria Lux and Orion separate after one of them became a national celebrity. That Nat and Clint were in the same boat only meant they had something else to commiserate to. And that of the seven heroes, one left the planet and three had so-called secret identities hadn’t gone over well with the talking heads. Technically, there were _four_ with secret identities, because Bruce wasn’t quite out of the Hulk-closet either, despite all the smoke General Ross tried to blow. 

Still though, Bruce was free to be himself, while the three who had been SHIELD first, Avengers second had to disappear into the crowd and avoid the pointed inquiries the media raised into just who Hawkeye, Black Widow and Orion were. 

_Active agents._ They were active agents of SHIELD and as such, their names were protected by SHIELD and any attempt to learn their identities could be considered a threat to global security. 

That was the official line, anyway. 

Kyria knew it was going to come out eventually. Even with Charlie and Ash running interference. And, no, it hadn’t gone unnoticed that all the pictures of them were blurry, out of focus, or otherwise incapable of facial recognition. 

Why did her life have to be so complicated? There were three separate and distinct part of her life. Kyria Lux, agent of SHIELD and relatively normal person; Orion, alien and world famous hero; and Morningstar, daughter of the most infamous villain of all time. 

True, the lines between the three were blurry, and there was more than a little bit of overlap, but sometimes it felt like she was three people. Admittedly it helped that when Orion went viral, Morningstar stopped being such a dangerous boogeyman. 

Of course Morningstar had an adopted homicidal sister loose to run amuck in the world and cause untold destruction – 

But she was _not_ thinking about that right now. 

Now she was supposed to dwell in the mindlessness of lounging in a hammock and try to remember how to relax. She couldn’t remain battle-ready forever, no matter how much she wanted to. Lilith – 

No. Not Lilith. Not thinking about Lilith now. Thinking about something, anything, um, how nice it was that so many of her – friends? acquaintances? assets? projects? – came to help the Post Alien Reconstruction Coalition, or P.A.R.C. Kyria kept in touch, sure, but it wasn’t the same as seeing and talking with them in person. 

And thinking about P.A.R.C. reminded her that, yes, they had won, but that didn’t mean New York wasn’t still facing hundreds of millions of dollars of structural damage, even three months later. So that wasn’t a good train of thought either. 

Fury had Phil in some dark hole somewhere. Kyria could still feel for his heartbeat if she listened, so she knew that whatever the Director had done to him, he was more-or-less fine. Even if Phil Coulson was still listed among the dead of the Battle – 

_Damn._ Did she have _no_ cheerful thoughts? 

Irises. She would look at the irises in the garden conveniently visible if she turned her head. A beautiful plot of regal blue flowers, the Mesopotamian Iris. Blue irises symbolized faith and hope. Growing beside them was a white variety of a different species of the same flower, which looked to be the White Cemetery Iris. White ones symbolized purity. Irises were associated with the fleur-de-lis and were named for the Greek word for “rainbow” – 

And she was even overthinking flowers. How did she do this? 

“I don’t know.” 

Kyria rolled off the hammock, landing in crouch with a sword dropping into her hand. The elderly black man who had spoken stood placidly beside a swath of Queen Anne’s Lace, looking for all the world at home in the garden. 

The rocking hammock between them, Kyria met the intruder’s eyes. 

“You won’t be needing that,” he said mildly. 

Her fingers tightened on the hilt of the blade. 

“Really?” she replied tightly, deliberately rising out of her crouch. “I’ve found it necessary in most of my dealings with angels.” 

“Not with Gabriel,” he pointed out. “Nor with Raphael.” 

“Gabriel is no longer a part of Heaven. He interceded when I accidently ran afoul of Raphael.” 

“In your dealings with the prophet, yes.” 

Kyria stiffened. “You know about that?” 

“I review the prophet’s visions.” 

She felt ice creep through her veins. “Then you’ve known where I was for over two years now.” 

“Yes.” 

“How many?” she breathed. _How many angels know where to find me?_

“Just me.” 

“ _Just_ – why?” 

“Because I listen. And I wanted to hear what you had to say.” 

“In my experience, most angels don’t care what I have to say,” Kyria retorted, trying to regain her equilibrium. After all the curveballs life had thrown her way recently, she had developed a propensity to roll with the punches. 

He smiled faintly at that. “I’m not most angels. I’m a gardener. I don’t preach, or fight. I just trim the hedges. And I listen when someone talks.” 

She didn’t put the angel blade away, but she lowered it somewhat. “From what Gabriel told me of why he left, that’s unusual.” 

The angel inclined his head. “So it is.” 

“Which one are you?” 

“I’m Joshua. I tend to the Garden.” 

“The Garden,” she repeated. She thought Gabriel had mentioned that a time or two. “The center of Heaven.” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re in charge of the _center of Heaven_ and you came to _talk_ to _me.”_

“I told you – I listen.” 

Kyria could not help but stare at the gardener. 

“I have also listened in on several of the scientific discussions you have had on the nature of what is called Heaven. For one who has never been there, you have a remarkable grasp on its nature.” 

“I have to. Survival.” 

Joshua nodded. “Know thy enemy. A wise adage. I have no desire to be your enemy, however.” 

“Because you _listen?”_

“Partly. Though he has some . . . odd habits, the respect of the Messenger is not something to be taken lightly. I will admit, I was . . . intrigued. Many believed him dead and yet he was keeping company with – “ 

“The Morningstar Abomination?” she supplied bitterly. 

“You are Morningstar, yes. But not an abomination. Those who named you such believe that any dilution of our power is a perversion. They don’t see you as you are.” 

“And what am I?” she asked when he didn’t continue. 

He smiled. “Favored of our Father.” 

Kyria didn’t so much drop the sword as lose hold of its reality. The blade disappeared before it ever touched the ground. She didn’t notice its absence in the sudden roaring in her head. That was one sucker punch she never saw coming. 

Their Father. 

Her grandfather. 

The being most humans thought of as God. 

“You’ve spoken to him?” she choked out past her dizzying shock. 

“Mostly, He talks to me.” 

“That’s more than anyone else can say truthfully.” Kyria shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. “Where is he?” 

“On Earth.” 

“Doing what?” 

“I don’t know. I believe he is exploring humanity.” 

“Exploring - ? Like Anna, do you mean?” 

“His landing was somewhat more graceful than Hanael, I believe. She tore out her Grace and fell. He simply walked out one day and closed himself off.” 

“Why?” 

“That is the question, isn’t it? The one everyone asks – why did God do this, allow this to happen? You know the answer. You’re living it.” 

She swallowed. “Would it be too cliché to say free will?” 

“Not at all,” Joshua answered. “Free will was his gift to humanity. The ability to choose one’s own actions – and the subsequent consequences. It’s a hard lesson for humans. It is harder still for us.” 

“Angels? He left to give angels free will?” No wonder Heaven was screwed six ways to Sunday. Angels typically had a very flat learning curve. And now it seemed they were running the show. 

That explained a lot, actually. 

Joshua sighed. “It is not that simple. Walk with me?” 

Kyria looked down at the hammock gently swaying between them and fought the urge to duck her head. Here was the third angel to not try to kill her – the second she actually had a chance to talk with – and she was distancing herself. She circled around the post and took up step beside the companionable angel. 

It wasn’t that she trusted Joshua. She barely trusted _Gabriel_ and she’d known him for ages. It was more – he was mellow, if such a word could be applied to an angel. He would stop periodically to tend to the plants – turning morning glories back to their trellises, pruning gladiolus. There was more than a little disbelief brought on by watching an _angel_ playing with _flowers,_ but it was accompanied by a sense of peace she had been unable to find alone on the hammock. 

It was nice. 

“Where are we?” 

Joshua looked up from the hydrangea with a quirk in his eyebrows. “Currently, we are in an area where your slumbering mind drifts near to the Garden.” 

And Kyria thought she was done with surprises for the time being. She probably should have known better. “I dream of _Heaven?”_

“Many people do.” That was a smile. That was definitely a smile. At least he wasn’t laughing at her. “Why do you think some wake feeling a deep peace, or having found answers to questions that plagued them during waking hours?” 

That made sense. More so than God offering His seal of approval to the devil’s daughter, anyway. 

“The way Gabriel talks, I half expected it to be anarchy up here.” 

“Most angels are soldiers. They follow their orders.” 

“Even when their commander in chief is AWOL?” 

“They believe they follow His will.” 

“They don’t know he’s gone,” she translated. Idle hands distracting her from the turmoil she was trying to unravel in her mind, Kyria borrowed the angel’s pruning shears and set to work on a yellow broom plant overhanging the walkway, trying to make her thoughts follow a logical path.. 

There had to be a few angels in Heaven who knew the Father had left. They concealed his absence . . . why? Disbelief? Fear? Of what? That they did something wrong? They were angels! They weren’t supposed to _have_ emotions! 

Maybe that was the problem? Free will wasn’t just the freedom to make your own choices, it was having the option of making mistakes and trying to learn from the consequences. And if He hadn’t announced his intentions before wandering off . . . human media had a great deal to say on what happened when parents left their children unsupervised. 

Kyria paused in the middle of diverting a honeysuckle away from strangling a rose bush as she realized she was mentally debating which age of child the angels were. This was getting very surreal. 

Joshua was watching her with a smile on his face. 

“How do you do this every day?” she asked in frustration. Trying to make sense of the actions of the angels seemed to be a certain way to make her head hurt. 

He tilted his head, his smile somehow both deepening and fading. “I have had longer to adjust to this line of thought.” 

“You mean the thought that angelic upper management is a bunch of children making a mess in hopes their father will pay attention to them? Yes, that is a lot to wrap my head around. I mean, how has no one noticed Michael and Lucifer’s true vessels running around? Azazel must have spent _decades_ working a suitable vessel for Lucifer and no one _noticed?_ And the odds that one of the children he took interest in was the _true_ vessel? That was practically set up as the making of another Cain and Abel – “ 

She broke off abruptly at the look the angel was giving her. 

“They did notice didn’t they?” she said quietly, her mind suddenly spinning out a whole new set of possibilities, each less pleasant than the next. 

“Michael is preoccupied with our Father’s absence, I believe,” Joshua remarked. “But you are correct that such a thing could not have avoided notice.” 

The end of the sentence hung in the air, sounding unfinished. 

Kyria swallowed around a mouth gone dry as she followed that to its natural conclusion. “The odds that Azazel would just _happen_ across the perfect child really were slim to none. They _interfered.”_

It wasn’t a question. Azazel made arrangements with prospective parents years before there were children. That one of his contracts was with a woman of Lucifer’s line, who married a man of Michael’s, when he had no way of knowing the vessel lineages, no way of predicting children would arrive within his allotted window – 

“Cherub.” 

It took a moment for Kyria to recognize the faint, breathless voice as hers. It was the only option that fit, but it was so difficult to comprehend. Because it would have taken a cherub to ensure the bloodlines joined at exactly the right time, but cherubs did not act on their own, and they _certainly_ didn’t act on a demon’s behalf. 

_“They set it up.”_

_Angels_ had arranged for the bloodlines to merge, for one of Azazel’s children to be _the_ child. She shied away from the idea that they would have arranged for Dean to go to Hell in order to release her father, but it was inescapable. Dean wasn’t the _only_ choice for the Righteous Man, but he was the _best._ Destiny didn’t like loose ends and who better to start everything than one already in the middle of it all? 

It wasn’t hard to see something like that playing out either. That convoluted mess she’d walked into in Cold Oak bore all the signs of a way to railroad Dean into a crossroads deal. Sam didn’t have that hardened survive-at-all-costs mindset necessary to have gotten out of Cold Oak on his own. But since he was _needed_ (read: destined) to survive, and Dean was hard-wired to look after his brother, had Sam died, Dean _would_ have gone to the crossroad to bring him back, thus putting the First Seal in line to break. 

If one didn’t care about the lives of the pieces, it was a nearly perfect plan. 

But since Azazel _hadn’t known_ all the pieces, there had to be another player pulling strings from the background. And as that play had been to get Lilith on the board, it couldn’t have been _demons_ pulling those side strings. 

Which meant it must have been angels. 

There were angels – still serving Heaven, still believing they were following the will of God – who wanted the devil loose. Because what good were vessels if they were never used? And for _Michael and Lucifer_ to occupy their true vessels _at the same time_ . . . there was only one thing _that_ could mean. 

The final battle. 

She knew her father wanted to end the world. She’d always known that. But he was a _fallen_ angel. The apocalypse was something to be expected of the devil. But angels? 

_Angels wanted to end the world._

Kyria tried to remember how to breathe. 

And to think she’d been concerned about Lilith! Possibly accidentally releasing Lilith from Hell by creating unknowns repercussions by joining with the Tesseract, including but not limited to sprouting wings she never knew she had, didn’t seem quite so damning when considered in the light of Hell _and_ Heaven having spent decades subtly manipulating events in order for Michael and Lucifer to meet on the field of battle. 

She let out a shuddering breath. She’d always known that was the end game. She just hadn’t known all the players. 

“You came to warn me?” she asked, her voice sounding weary to her ears. When had she sat down on the path? 

“Among other things,” Joshua replied calmly. “I _did_ want to meet you. Just because He likes you, didn’t mean I would. One’s actions speak louder than one’s words, but I wanted to hear yours.” 

“And what did mine have to say?” 

“That He was right about you.” Kyria looked up in surprise as the gardener sat down beside her. Joshua smiled. “So I thought I would pass along something that might help.” 

She stared incomprehensibly at the gleaming sword in the angel’s hands. 

“I already have an angel blade.” 

“This is no mere angelic sword,” Joshua corrected sternly. “This is one of the First.” 

Her breath caught. “That’s the Sword of an Archangel?” 

“Not just any archangel.” 

It was a leading statement and Kyria had to curl her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “My father.” Just because she knew with certainty that she was not going to join him, didn’t mean she was entirely comfortable on the matter of her paternity. 

“Yes. This was the sword of the Morningstar before he turned against Heaven. It has been in the armory since he left. His Father thought it was about time it had a bearer again.” 

“He – He wants me to have this?” Kyria tried and failed not to gape. The only time she was ever offered angelic swords was when the angels they belonged to tried to kill her with them. And now _God_ – her _grandfather_ – wanted her to have a deadlier weapon belonging to the most infamous angel ever. She didn’t know how to respond. “I – uh – won’t someone notice it’s gone?” 

“They prefer not to think about him more than necessary. I don’t believe anyone has looked at that sword since the Morningstar fell from Heaven.” 

“Okay,” she said breathlessly as he handed over her father’s sword. She turned it over in her hands, examining every inch of it. It felt – _right_ – in a way none of her other angelic blades had. Pulling it into herself, the sword thrummed under her skin in a manner not dissimilar to the connection she’d forged with Phil. 

This felt more natural, however, and it centered her. Kyria sighed, opening eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed. 

“Am I supposed to stop it?” 

Joshua raised his eyebrows. “Would you not have endeavored to do so anyway? You strike me as the type who would fight alone to the last breath if you had to.” 

She grimaced. “To keep him locked away, yeah, I would.” 

“It’s a good thing you have friends to help you then. I’m not a fighter myself, just a gardener. But I’ll be here. This garden isn’t going anywhere.” 

“Are you inviting me back?” Kyria asked in confusion. 

The gardener smiled. “Not enough people tend the plants. Besides, I will admit I’m looking forward to witnessing that sword carve a new path.” 

Kyria found herself smiling back. A warning, a weapon, and a friend. Not bad for a night’s work. She nodded to the angel and turned her attention back to the garden. Worrying about the machinations of angels and demons could wait for the morning.


End file.
